A Modern Cherub, Vide Peters

This is one of nine portrait caricatures of society women created by Gillray in the fall and winter of 1791, beginning with Patience on a Monument (September 19th), and including such well-known Gillray prints as The Finishing Touch (September 29th), La Derniere Ressource (October 3rd), and A Witch Upon a Mount's Edge (October 17th)—all in profile engaged in significant, character-revealing activities. But it has even more in common with two other prints from the same time period: At Church (October 4th) and At the Opera (also October 4th), being roughly sketched, partial length, and in small format, approximately 13 x 8 centimenters.

It is not surprising that Gillray would have turned to social satire at this juncture. Parliament was between sessions from June 1791 and January 1792 and Gillray still needed to produce successful prints to provide income for himself and for his publisher, Hannah Humphrey.

A Modern Cherub which instructs the viewer to "Vide [See] Peters" may refer one or more of several prints by the Reverend William Peters, a small-time painter of portraits and sentimental genre and religious scenes whom Gillray seems to have enjoyed parodying.

The first one with two cherubs with spread wings and uplifted eyes is entitled Cherubim and was engraved after Peters by one of Gillray's former teachers, Francesco Bartolozzi. The second, more distinctly modern, print with two young women looking at the music before them is called Chanters, engraved by John Raphael Smith.

But it is also possible that Gillray combined his recollection of these two with the following print featuring a young woman with swirling hair, receding chin, and a lace collar that Gillray then extended into wings. The two young women are daughters of the Bishop of Peterborough who had lately presided over Peters' wedding in 1790.

Gillray seems to have followed Peters' career closely and was probably jealous of the success Peters had attained with only a fraction of Gillray's talent. He had already referenced Peters earlier in the year in The Accusing Spirit. . . (April 1791), and he was to make still better use of Peters in The Guardian Angel 1805.

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on A Modern Cherub, Vide Peters
• "William Peters (painter)," Wikipedia
• Matthew William Peters, R.A., His Life and Work

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